Alejandro v.
| Decision Date | 31 March 2017 |
| Docket Number | 15-CV-3346 (AJN) |
| Parties | Miriam Alejandro, Plaintiff, v. New York City Department of Education and Emmanuel Polanco, Individually, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York |
Plaintiff Miriam Alejandro brings this action against her former employer the New York City Department of Education (the "DOE") and Principal Emmanuel Polanco in his individual capacity (together with the DOE, "Defendants"). Alejandro alleges that Defendants (i) discriminated against her on the basis of sex, age, and disabilities associated with dyslexia and human immunodeficiency virus ("HIV"), (ii) impermissibly refused to grant her requested medical leave, and (iii) retaliated against her for complaining of the alleged discrimination and for submitting leave requests, including by suspending her without pay on several occasions and ultimately terminating her employment. Alejandro asserts claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII"), 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq.; the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 ("ADEA"), 29 U.S.C. § 621, et seq.; the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 ("ADA"), 42 U.S.C. § 12101, et seq., as amended in 2008; the Family Medical Leave Act of 1993 ("FMLA"), 29 U.S.C. § 2601 et seq.; and the New York City Human Rights Law ("NYCHRL"), N.Y.C. Admin. Code § 8-101, et seq. Before the Court is Defendants' motion for summary judgment on all claims. For the reasons set forth below, Defendants' motion is GRANTED with respect to the federal claims, and the Court declines to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the NYCHRL claims.
The following is drawn from the parties' Local Rule 56.1 statements and evidentiary exhibits cited therein. As it must at the summary judgment stage, the Court construes the evidence in the light most favorable to Alejandro and draws all reasonable inferences in her favor.
Alejandro is an approximately 60-year-old woman who suffers from dyslexia and has been HIV-positive since the late 1980s. See Plaintiff's Response to Defendants' Local Rule 56.1 Statement of Undisputed Material Facts and Counterstatement of Facts, Dkt. No. 70 ("Pl. Resp."), ¶¶ 50, 64-65, 121. Starting in September 2007, Alejandro was employed by the DOE as a "parent coordinator" assigned to Isobel Rooney Middle School 80/J.H.S. 080 The Mosholu Parkway ("M.S. 80"). Id. ¶¶ 1, 9. For the first several years of her tenure as a parent coordinator, Alejandro served under Principal Lovey Mazique-Rivera. Id. ¶¶ 76-84. During that time, Alejandro's responsibilities included outreach to parents in the community as part of an effort to ameliorate negative public perceptions of M.S. 80 and facilitate enhanced parental involvement, and she maintained a small office within the school where she met with parents to address concerns and answer questions. Id. ¶¶ 77-79; Plaintiff's Ex. 1 (Miriam Alejandro Deposition Transcript), Dkt. No. 71-1 ("Alejandro Dep."), at 27-31; Plaintiff's Ex. 5 (Affidavit of Miriam Alejandro, dated April 8, 2013), Dkt. No. 71-5 ("April 2013 Alejandro Aff.") ¶ 5.
Alejandro disclosed to Principal Mazique-Rivera during her initial job interview that she was dyslexic, and advised that the condition could cause "little problem[s]" with her written work. Pl. Resp. ¶¶ 80-81; Alejandro Dep. at 40-41. In response, Rivera advised Alejandro that she would make a notation in Alejandro's personnel file and speak with the DOE to determine how to accommodate her condition. Pl. Resp. ¶ 81; Alejandro Dep. at 40-41. Alejandro did not disclose her HIV condition to Mazique-Rivera at any time. Alejandro Dep. at 103. To accommodate her dyslexia, Alejandro was ultimately permitted to use a device called a "phone master" which, among other things, played back an audio version of Alejandro's word-processed work and allowed her to more effectively screen for typos and other errors. Declaration of Miriam Alejandro, dated October 6, 2016, Dkt. No. 72 ("Alejandro Dec") ¶ 2.
Alejandro worked for Mazique-Rivera substantially without incident through early 2012, and a March 2012 performance evaluation for the 2011-12 school year described Alejandro as an "excellent employee" who had "exceeded all of [Mazique-Rivera's] expectations," always "me[t] the needs of our parents and students," and generally gone "over and above her job description to ensure that M.S. 80 ha[d] an environment conducive for learning, student achievement, and parent participation." Pl. Resp. ¶ 84; Plaintiffs' Ex. 4 (2011-12 Performance Evaluation), Dkt. No. 71-4. Officially, the evaluation rated Alejandro's performance as "Satisfactory." Id.
In April 2012, Defendant Polanco took over as the new principal of M.S. 80. Pl. Resp. ¶ 12. At the outset of the following school year, on approximately August 29, 2012, Polanco orally advised Alejandro that she would no longer be responsible for community outreach or for conducting meetings with parents, as those tasks had been reassigned to two or three newly hired "community coordinators" and/or "community associates." Pl. Resp. ¶¶ 66-67, 89; April 2013 Alejandro Aff. ¶¶ 22-24; Plaintiff's Ex. 6 (February 10, 2013 Letter from Alejandro to Polanco), Dkt. No. 71-8, at 3. These new employees included, at least initially, one to two females and one to two males, all apparently in their 20s or 30s. Pl. Resp. ¶¶ 65-67; April 2013 Alejandro Aff. ¶¶ 22-24; Alejandro Dep. at 64; Plaintiff's Ex. 6 at 3. Polanco further informed Alejandro that her desk had been relocated from her small private office to M.S. 80's main office, and that her tasks would now include, among other things, greeting and directing parent visitors and maintaining a log of their visits, answering phones, and assisting in the translation of documents and parent-staff conversations. Pl. Resp. ¶ 89; Plaintiff's Ex. 6 at 3; Plaintiff's Ex. 7 (August 31, 2013 E-mail from Alejandro to Polanco), Dkt. No. 71-9; Plaintiff's Ex. 23 (Affidavit of Miriam Alejandro, dated August 23, 2013), Dkt. No. 71-25 ("August 2013 Alejandro Aff.") ¶ 4. Two days later, Alejandro sent Polanco an e-mail confirming her understanding of these new responsibilities. Plaintiff's Ex. 7.
Several weeks later, on approximately September 19, 2012, Polanco held a meeting with Alejandro and provided her with a formal written description of her role as parent coordinator for the 2012-13 school year, which Alejandro acknowledged in writing. Pl. Resp. ¶¶ 16-17, 91; Defendants' Ex. G (Parent Coordinator Job Description), Dkt. No. 58-7; Alejandro Dep. at 78-80. That document set forth a list of tasks for Alejandro to carry out during the school year, including: developing and submitting a plan to increase parental engagement, preparing a monthly newsletter for distribution to parents, scheduling and organizing certain computer-based platform training for parents, maintaining parental sign-in sheets and a log of parental contacts, organizing parent-student trips, responding to parents' inquiries, visiting parents new to the community, conducting a monthly meeting for all parents, and recruiting parent volunteers to participate in school activities. Defendants' Ex. G. During the course of that meeting, Alejandro advised Polanco of her dyslexia and suggested that it would be difficult for her to prepare regular newsletters. Alejandro Dep. at 149. Nothing in the record suggests that Alejandro disclosed her HIV status to Polanco at that time.
Following the meeting, Alejandro's understanding was that, moving forward, she would perform the tasks identified in the written job description while continuing to maintain responsibility for answering phones and performing the other clerical tasks that Polanco had orally assigned in late August. Pl. Resp. ¶¶ 16-18, 90-91, 95; Alejandro Dep. at 79-81. Alejandro encountered difficulty performing all of these assignments in a timely manner and, on at least one occasion, e-mailed Polanco to request one hour of compensatory time per day to aid her in keeping parent visitor logs up to date while still executing her office management responsibilities. Polanco denied that request. Pl. Resp. ¶¶ 90, 95-96; Alejandro Dep. 79-81; Plaintiff's Ex. 8 (October 24, 2012 E-mail from Alejandro to Polanco), Dkt. No. 71-10; Plaintiff's Ex. 9 (October 24, 2012 E-mail from Polanco to Alejandro), Dkt. No. 71-11.
The M.S. 80 School Staff Handbook, a copy of which Alejandro received in September 2012, stated that it would be "considered excessive" for any employee to be absent for six or more days prior to January 31 and that such conduct could "result in a warning letter." Defendants' Ex. H (M.S. Staff Handbook), Dkt. Nos. 58-8-58-10; Pl. Resp. ¶ 19; Alejandro Dep. at 121. By the end of December 2012, Alejandro had already been absent on seven occasions, and, on January 4, 2013, Polanco notified Alejandro in writing that he had scheduled a disciplinary conference on January 9, 2013 to discuss her "attendance and performance." Defendants' Ex. I (January 4, 2013 Letter from Polanco to Alejandro), Dkt. No. 58-11; Defendants' Ex. J (January 4, 2013 Letter from Polanco to Alejandro), Dkt. No. 58-12; Pl. Resp. ¶¶ 21-22. Alejandro failed to attend the January 9 conference and two additional conferences rescheduled by Polanco for January 11 and January 16, 2013, respectively. Pl. Resp. ¶¶ 21-25; Defendants' Ex. L (January 2013 Suspension Letter from Polanco to Alejandro). Alejandro attributes her failure to attend these conferences to her union representative's inability to participate on two of the dates and to her own need to visit a terminally ill nephew in North Carolina - and thus miss work - for a period of time encompassing the third date. The record reflects that each of these issues was contemporaneously documented in correspondence...
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